


Little Birds

by Aris



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anorexia, Bulimia, Bullying, Community: norsekink, Eating Disorders, Kind-of Hipster!Loki, Loki-centric, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slurs, binge eating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aris/pseuds/Aris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p><br/>Loki starts university with a BMI of 17.3; Tony finishes university with a bottle of whiskey.<br/> <br/><b>For <a href="http://norsekink.livejournal.com/12950.html?thread=31320214#t31320214">THIS</a> prompt on Norsekink.</b><br/></p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> Title taken from [Little Birds by Neutral Milk Hotel](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQSdpoI42hs)
> 
> Music when writing [HERE ](http://8tracks.com/ribcages/writing-music-the-eternal-sadness-edition).  
> Unbetad  
> 

He's never had an easy relationship with food. When he was small, a child, he had been an infamously picky eater - refusing to eat if something was a slightly different colour or shape than expected. _He'll grow out of it,_ is what his father would always say to his mothers worried eyes, comforting and warmly masculine, _It's just a phase_. 

And it was.

By eight, he was eating fine - more than fine, in fact. He took all and any food offered with apparent gusto, raiding cupboards with small chubby hands and reaching in his pockets for chocolate bars and crisps and sticky, gummy sweets. His parents, overjoyed he was eating at all, the image of an underfed child still firmly in their minds eyes, allowed his continuous eating, encouraged it, even. Lunch boxes of chocolate and ridged crisps, apples and greens foregone in favour of heavy flavoured carbohydrates, rich, fizzy drinks and and packets of sour sugar. It never seemed odd to Loki, as Thor often ate as much, sometimes more, and was prone to stealing a gummy bear or two from Loki's own snacks; much to his own distress.

At primary school is can be easy to ignore insults, forgotten in the haze if a developing mind, and Loki instead found solace in the notes of music and the tongues of language. Lunch times, when not spent eating, he lounged at language sessions, paid for by his parents, and found ivory keys with freshly cleaned fingers. _No sticky paws on this old beauty,_ his music teacher would say to him, a strange smile on his face, and Loki would recall talk of a dead wife and a hospitalised daughter. Adult talk, and he was not permitted to comment.

Overweight and eleven, Year 7 washed in as mean-eyed bullies and lonely lessons. Friendless, as a result of food and hobbies, he found it was harder to ignore being cornered in a corridor and tripped up on the way to lessons than just being called names. Older kids, and their older friends, would laugh behind hands as he left the school gates, would catcall and wave and pretend to be his friend just to laugh at him. As it was, it was still _not that bad_ and the languages teacher let him eat lunch in her classroom and he got to skip PE in favour of piano lessons. He would come home and eat and his mother would ask him how his day was and it was always okay, and if Thor knew any better he never let slip. 

And then - _daddy_ left home. 

His mother would spend evenings crying, Thor at her side to hold her arm and wipe her tears and Loki would feed Baldur, copying the meals his mother often set aside for her youngest. It struck him then how much smaller Baldur's servings were, how there were vegetables and white meats and _fruit_ for a desert, sweet and cold - in a different way from ice cream. Baldur was protective of his healthy treats and Loki would leave him to it, twitching for a row or five of chocolate so the munching would be loud enough not to hear his mother's sobbing in the room next door. 

His fourteenth year was spent wondering why his father left. He had loved Thor, his little hero, and Baldur had always been a daddys boy - his mother, Frigga, was the kindest person he knew and Loki found it hard to fathom that someone would leave her. Could leave her. He hadn't even had an explanation - just gone. Upped. Left. He might as well had been dead. Except - there was one fault in his perfect family life, in his suburban dream.

Loki.

A fat failure in everything his father prized, and his pillow was wet more nights than he cared to think of. He'd hear his mother in the kitchen, talking in monotones to her friends and he'd think _it's my fault it's my fault it's my fault_ and buy her a box of tissues on the way home. He bought plasters, too, and the women behind the counter knew his mother and let him buy paracetamol - sympathetically cooing about her poor headaches. The reality was Loki got kicked behind the bike sheds again and a gash on his back wouldn't stop bleeding and a sore spot on his head led his eyes to see things a little off kilter. 

He was ten pounds overweight before the summer break, breezing through his exams covered in bruises and plasters and smelling of disinfectant. He got home, and there was a note on fridge for Thor - _Working late tonight - going to need ingredients for dinner! No more sweets, honey! Can't afford more than the basics. Coupons on the table, I'm back at 7, be good! xxx_ and Loki's heart sunk to his shoes. His eating, no -his _over_ -eating was costing the family. Of course. He had no idea they were struggling to money, those sorts of things were told to Thor and Thor only. He felt guilt flood him from every side, and brought his hand to his mouth, worrying on it slightly. His first instinct was to reach for food, for comfort, but he slammed a fast down on the kitchen side. No. This is what caused all this. Gluttony. 

When Thor gets home, Loki offers to go shopping with him, and they buy nothing but fruit and vegetables and some base carbohydrates. His mum is happy, making dinner, and Loki lets Thor eat the remaining biscuits and packets of crisps. 

Back from summer break, Year Ten and a new school but with the same people, Loki is now a normal weight. Average. Wonderfully ordinary, but he's still Lardy Loki, still gets pushed around and teased; he lurks in the library, doing homework and extension work and playing stupid games on his phone to pass the time. He didn't take music as a GCSE, and he's too shy to find his way to the music block and ask where he can sign up for lessons. He has a piano at home, a small, plastic one for kids that doesn't compare to the oak brilliance of the old battered one at his last school, but it serves his purpose well enough. In the stretch of time where Thor is out with his friends and mother has taken Baldur to the park, Loki plays to himself, Bach and Chopin, savouring the old classics and reflecting on being a young child ignorant to the voices of his peers. It's his comfort now, because food isn't.

Food is far from a comfort.

He's not allowed to eat in the library. He doesn't want to eat during the day, anyway, because on the walk home he can bet good money on the chance he'll get kicked in the stomach till he's throwing up into the nearest gutter, surrounding by laughing boys. _What's wrong Lardy Loki - can't keep your food down!_ and Loki has seen Thor pass by, more than once, with his friends. His blue eyes never linger long and if Thor doesn't tell mother, Loki will pretend he doesn't care. It's a silent agreement. 

This fat is his own problem. It's a problem that's already been a weight on other people - his father, his mother, Thor, Baldur - and Loki refuses to let it be a problem again. He eats less at dinner, sliding uneaten meat to Thor and giving his sweet apples to Baldur - leaving out some greens from his plate to make sure his mother is eating enough. Breakfast is a luxury, and not one he can afford to have. He's tired now, all the time, and he sleeps in till he has ten minutes to pull on clothes and get his books and run out the door. He gets home, stomach sore, and he runs a lap round the block. Two laps. Three laps. Four. 

He's fifteen and his BMI is one point underweight, eighteen point four, and not even a vigorous beating that leaves him with foot shaped bruises on his ribs can get him down. Not even when a kid from sixth form spits _faggot_ at him and his interest in the boy who sits two rows in front of him in Science suddenly becomes clear. Gay. It's not like there's anyone to come out to - not like he's ever going to have a boyfriend, so he just runs his hand down the plastic piano at home and thinks about how disappointed his father would be.

In English he is forced into the group, and it's quiet girls who usually don't join in with the barbs, but they have upturned lips and allocate him one part and then leave to sit at a table in the classroom far from him. When he gets home he eats the biscuits Thor thinks he's keeping secret, the whole pack, and his stomach hurts so goddamn much he just _has_ to throw it all up and out into the toilet. He stops, after a few minutes, and breathes heavily, the crumpled packet still in his hand. He stares at it, at the numbers partly concealed by his pale thumb. One hundred and thirty six calories per piece.

This time, he makes himself throw up.

The _fat faggot_ finally joins Year Twelve after months of revision and exams that had him buying food on the way home from school and sticking his toothbrush down his throat. Leaving the house at two am in the cold to stuff the empty packets into the bins, pretending it never happened, and slipping money he finds on the streets into Baldur's piggy bank, leaving notes on the kitchen side for his mother to find. The bullying at school has mostly stopped, A levels ridding the school of those with low grades and little motivation, but Loki is still alone at lunch and break, working furiously on essays and homework, reading textbooks and highlighting relevant passages. Friendless, and he's used to it by now. 

His eating patterns change little, small amounts and binges and purges, but his height grows and he finds himself at 6'0 at the age of seventeen, and his BMI drops to his age, as well. He is _officially underweight_ and his mum never notices and the school never ask and Thor left for Uni a year ago, and only comes home for Christmas. Baldur is thirteen and when he brings his friends over Loki locks himself away in his room and listens to his music as loudly as possible, nursing a saved coffee and ignoring the rumble to his stomach. The noise they make gives him headaches, loud like children should be, but Loki never complains because Baldur has friends and it's such a novel, brilliant thing to Loki he would never be able to bring himself to dampen such a prospect. 

Loki lands a scholarship with Kingston for Creative Writing, and his mum bakes him a cake the night before he leaves and he's up at midnight throwing it up. He says he wouldn't want to ruin it by travelling with it, and he hugs Baldur, telling him to eat the rest of his cake for him, and then he gets on a train, not even feeling a trace of guilt for the lie. Not anymore. Frigga waves as he leaves, and Thor's out with friends, not leaving to his his own University for another week and uncaring of his younger brothers departure.

But that's fine, muses Loki, and reaches for his earphones, thinking of London.


	2. Chapter 2

With the scholarship, he could have gotten a dorm, but his value of privacy is far higher than that. It sets him on edge to even think about sharing his space with someone who isn't family, someone his age. Peers have never been very good to him. He's been saving up, anyway, from birthdays and Christmas and from selling the little plastic piano. He couldn't bring it with him, and as heartbreaking as it is too watch a small, reckless kid hit down on it's plastic keys, he needs the money.

So he wakes up alone in a tiny apartment. It's suffocatingly lonely, but he pulls himself from his bed anyway, determined to be independent and nothing like those people who lay in bed all day, too lazy to make an effort. God, but he just wants to sleep - he's so tired, the shadows under his eyes weighing in too heavy, and he cant let himself. He's going to make an effort, he will. If he goes outside, he won't get beaten up. He can walk the streets in broad daylight and scope out the area, and no ones going to hurt him.

It's an airy feeling.

Goading himself, he pulls on jeans and a sweater, fighting the urge to layer his clothes to feel safer. It's August and warm out, and he doesn't need a coat. Not yet. Loki allows himself a black beanie, for fashion - nothing to do with having something to protect his head - and pushes his feet into worn boots. He doesn't look at the mirror, doesn't let himself, and locks the door to his apartment on his way out.

It's pleasantly warm out, and he walks in and out of streets, taking note of nearby stores and parks. He's following signs to his Uni, trying to figure out how long exactly it will take him to walk there on a day-to-day basis. The last thing he wants it to be late on the first day, and he knows better to trust whatever time his landlord told him - ten minutes seemed a little too good to be true.

There's a lot of people about, and it's threatening in the way they hit against his shoulders when he doesn't move fast enough or glare him down when he stops a second too long to take in a sight. He ducks into an alleyway, halfway through his journey, not going to far in to avoid the yawning darkness but far enough to let himself breathe. Crowds are overwhelming, it seems, and not something he's overly accustomed to, originating from a relatively small town. 

_You're not back at school,_ Loki tells himself sternly, and pushes up off the wall and into the throng of people. It's only seven more minutes of dodging businessmen and women till he reaches the imposing front of the University and he checks his watch to see it's been about fifteen minutes since he left his front door; close enough to the suggested time, he'll give the landlord that. Spotting a bench opposite, he allows himself to sit and drink in the site of the building. 

It's modern, with older parts left on, and he finds himself admiring the long glass windows and elegant stretches of fake stone. It has a cold feel to it, one he much preferred to the old brick of his past school, and it reminded him of skyscrapers and blue skies. There's an itch to draw, to create, and Loki wishes he was more than a writer - wishes he could paint in long streaks and small dabs in every colour of the rainbow.

Instead, he fishes for a pen in his pocket and comes up with half a broken biro. It stains his fingers in black ink, but he's pleased nonetheless and rests the nib on the back of his hand. Kingston stares at him, new and fresh and free and he smiles to himself as words begin to form, floating and river-like. 

 

"Hey - uh, excuse me?" Loki startles badly at the touch of a hand, his half-pen dropping into lap and trailing ink down his jeans as it falls to the floor. "Oh god, sorry! I didn't mean to scare you - I, uh - oh. Let me get that for you." the brown headed boy leans over and retrieves Loki's pen, locking eyes with him and smiling as he hands it over. 

Loki stares, wide eyed, at the act of kindness. The boy - man, really - lets out a chuckle that could be awkward and shuffles his feet, knocking his eyes down, "Sorry, sorry. I'm Bruce - I just saw you writing on your hand and wondered if you'd like some paper? I just bought new books for school and - and yeah. I have some paper. Would you like some?"

He can only continue to stare in shock, barely taking in the furious purple shirt and ruffled black bag that were beginning to back away from him,"Oh. Okay, I'm sorry for coming over I guess, I really didn't mean to-"

"No!," Bruce pauses, "I, no. Sorry I was just a bit - surprised. I'd love some paper, if you have any. Thank you." he blushes at his own eagerness, his mind quickly latching onto the fact that hey, he could make the first friend of his life, and attempting to mend his own stupidity before Bruce ambled away. People weren't his forte and he was painfully aware of how his voice sounded.

Nevertheless, Bruce just smiled brightly, murmuring an affirmative, and took a seat next to Loki, body turned towards him as he rested his body weight on one leg but keeping a decent amount of distance between them, evidently catching on that Loki valued his space. He flicked through books in his bag, pulling at a wired notebook till it came free of the other objects in his bag. It was a vivid purple, like his t-shirt, and it made Loki inexplicably want to smile.

"You like purple, I take it?"

It's Bruce's turn to look surprised, seemingly already categorised Loki as the shy type, but laughs anyway - deep and small. It makes Loki feel warm inside, like he used to when he was younger and sitting in his mum's lap, hands on that little plastic keyboard and a grinning father in the corner. It's a bitter-sweet memory, both lovely and painful, but has no place in his mind at the moment. Holding the pen, he attempts to capture that feeling again - that blue colour and those floaty, definite words that began with stubborn F's. There's tendrils of it on the edges of his mind, brief embraces, but they dance away in fragments, alluding his hard pressed devotion in search.

He's accurately aware Bruce is still there, apparently re-ordering his books and remaining companionably silent. He decides he likes it, the present company, though he can't seem to write as freely as he would usually. He feels judged, tested, and he scrawls out what he wrote on his hand on the paper in loopy, overly large handwriting and adds a few more words, a line or two, before letting the mental imagery go. Sometimes writing leaves before it can be written, like thoughts half formed are never voiced, and it's a shame and a pity but it happens. He'll expect to remember at three am one night, and he'll scrawl it out then in one of his new notebooks. He wants to fill his apartment with writing, with his one comfort and he can picture it now - Bach playing and notes falling to the floor. Profound. Empty.

This writing, though - this writing he doesn't want. It would be a jinx to let it be the first upon his wall, and it's with low hopes and even lower eyes he offers it to a ruffled looking Bruce.

"I don't really want it," Loki tries to explain, watching Bruce's eyes scan the paper and realising that _oh god, he just gave someone his writing someone is reading his writing that someone could respond any minute this was such a stupid stupid idea oh god_ -

"I've got to head off, now, anyway. Thank you for the paper, Bruce. It was really nice." and Loki stuffs his ink smothered pen into his pockets and pretends he's not suffocating under his own thoughts - and if he contemplates the concrete beneath his feet a little too hard on the way home, he doesn't want to talk about it.

Yeah. People aren't his forte.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the interest last chapter! Please do comment and I hope you enjoyed it

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm posting this as I write (terrible idea I know) and there's a good chance there will be a week or two between updates because I have so many WIPs I really should be writing but I'm fixated on eating disordered Loki.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr](http://norsed.tumblr.com)


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